A former parish in Venice, dating from the mid-17th century, has been converted into a mosque. Via JP Sonnen, he adds that they are busy making converts.

I do wonder why a mosque in Venice would have so much material in English? Is that becoming the lingua franca of islam’s rapid expansion into Europe?

For just one small example why this is happening – one of potentially thousands – a Belgian priest not only fails to oppose the mass euthanasia gripping the Low Countries (as a cost saving method to delay the implosion of their sacrosanct socialist health care schemes ), he thinks it an appropriate occasion for a “celebration.” Because, apparently, suicide is no longer self-murder and an act from which so many Saints have warned it is almost impossible to be forgiven, but something to be celebrated and promoted. Mind, this is no ordinary parish priest. This guy is the poster boy for the pathetic demise of the Church since the successful pro-modernist revolution of the late 50s-60s:

A Belgian priest, Fr. Gabriel Ringlet, has suggested that a “celebration” should mark the moment of death for Roman catholics who choose euthanasia.

He also promotes the “spiritual accompaniment” of such Catholics in such glowing terms that they read like support for euthanasia itself. While Fr Ringlet says he does not aim to justify “mercy killing,” his approach is a boon to euthanasia proponents.

His book, written in French, Vous me coucherez nu sur la terre nue (“Put me out naked on the naked ground”), is coming out on Thursday. Its publication by a major French publisher, Albin Michel, rather than a Belgian one, is likely a sign that it will be used in the French “end of life” debate……

…….He went on to make Catholic-sounding arguments before giving what some consider to be a blessing of euthanasia.

“But what should one do when one is confronted with the spiritual and moral suffering of an ill person who wants to put an end to it all?” he asked. “I would like it to be natural to dare to give spiritual accompaniment in the context of such demands.”

“Accompanying a person does not mean to adhere to his or her choices. It just means being there,” he said.

Fr. Ringlet then says he considers euthanasia a form of “self-defense…[a]gainst aggressive therapy, horrible suffering.”

“Putting end to someone’s life is wrong. You’ll never hear me saying it is something good. But to let a person suffer, when medicine has become powerless is also wrong,” he said. [So, it was wrong when our Blessed Lord suffered worse pain than anyone who has ever lived for our salvation? What of all the great good that has come from people who have joyfully accepted the suffering God gives them. Earthly suffering can actually be a tremendous blessing, not an evil. It is a great gift from God, if properly accepted, which can greatly ameliorate the temporal suffering due to our sins which will face us at our particular judgment, should we even be saved. It has enormous spiritual value.]

“When you’re stuck between two evils, you have to risk making a questionable decision. [And thus we see the dread hand of moral relativism. This man is a total relativist. The matter is not a question of the lesser of two evils, it is a question of one glaring, mortally sinful evil – self-murder – and choosing instead to offer the full cup of suffering God may choose to give us. And yes it’s incredibly easy for me to say that, though I’ve known a fair amount of suffering in my life. It is this kind of mentality that is now sending souls falling into hell like snowflakes, with this pathetic priest as their cheerleader.] In the end it is up to the doctor’s conscience to decide,” he stated. [NO!] “We sometimes find it difficult to admit that there are dead-ends in some cases.”If not an absolute justification of euthanasia, Ringlet’s arguments do sound as a manner of vindicating “mercy killing”, as if there were no possible alternative.

Fr. Ringlet, who has worked as a hospital chaplain, is of the opinion that palliative care and euthanasia should not be “separated,” so that all avenues can be explored……..

………Fr. Ringlet would like to see a “ritualization” of the act. [Of course he would, because such would give the ultimate legitimacy to his complicity in murder. Notice how leftists always want to sacralize their evil, in competition with the true spiritual goods of the Church]

“This moment of passing deserves to be personalized, and solemnized by means of a celebration, in order to appease the one who is leaving, and also those who will be left behind,” he said. “Euthanasia should not be a merely technical gesture. Why not ask the patient’s loved ones to bring a text, photos, prayers or even perfume? Why not have some essential oils for a last gesture of tenderness and benediction?” [You cannot say this is not positive encouragement of moral evil, and an attempt to make what is sinful “good.” This guy is utterly deranged from the Faith and even natural decency, he is the perfect product of the Catholic academy. It’s also a resurrection of pagan practices associated with celebrating “noble suicide.”]

He rejects the idea that a blessing with herbal oils would look too much like the anointment of the sick, which is a Catholic sacrament.

“The two gestures cannot be mixed up,” he said. “Nowadays, the sacrament of the sick is no longer administered at the last minute. It should be given long before, to encourage the crossing through illness.” [Many would say it has been trivialized and made bereft of meaning by its overuse. I hated going to Masses where a mass “anointing of the sick” would happen, seeing literally EVERYONE line up to be blessed, even people in the prime of life. I wouldn’t. I’m not a —-ing ewe.]

When saint Francis of Assisi asked to be “put naked on the naked ground” (the words Ringlet borrowed to give a title to his book) in order to die there in total destitution, he was not asking for his death to be hastened. He wanted more suffering, not less. It was considered an heroic identification with Christ.

Dang right. And yet this truly demented priest, in a practice common to all modernists, is twisting the sacred memory of a great Saint in order to advance their moral perversion. I have a hard time coming up with anything that is more demonic than that. When folks wonder whether we have modernists in the Church today……please. Guys like this are a dime a dozen in the priesthood now.

Via Fr. Peter Carota, whom we haven’t heard from in a while, some wonderful quotes (and photos) of Pope Saint Pius X, the great anti-modernist Pope, on his feast day. Contrary to those quotes for which he is most famous, dealing with the arch-heresy of modernism, these quotes have to do with our Blessed Mother and personal piety. I can’t recall seeing these before, I am thankful to Father Carota for sharing them:

“Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: “There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man.”

“God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race, and the Founder of the Faiths in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Spirit and bore Him in her womb, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary.”

“Sanctity alone makes us what our divine vocation demands, men crucified to the world and to whom the world has been crucified, men walking in newness of life who, in the words of St. Paul, show themselves as ministers of God in labors, in vigils, in fasting, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere charity, in the word of truth; men who seek only heavenly things and strive by every means to lead others to them.”

“My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His Divine help. I can do all in Him who strengthens me. His Power is infinite, and if I lean on him, it will be mine. His Wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel, I shall not be deceived. His Goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed in Him, I shall not be abandoned.”

“Let the storm rage and the sky darken – not for that shall we be dismayed. If we trust as we should in Mary, we shall recognize in her, the Virgin Most Powerful “who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent.”

“The collection of psalms found in Scripture, composed as it was under divine inspiration, has, from the very beginnings of the Church, shown a wonderful power of fostering devotion among Christians as they offer “to God a continuous sacrifice of praise, the harvest of lips blessing his name.” Following a custom already established in the Old Law, the psalms have played a conspicuous part in the sacred liturgy itself, and in the divine office. Augustine expresses this well when he says: “God praised himself so that man might give him fitting praise; because God chose to praise himself man found the way in which to bless God.” The psalms have also a wonderful power to awaken in our hearts the desire for every virtue. Athanasius says: “The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which the person using them can see himself, and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions.” Augustine says in his Confessions: “How I wept when I heard you hymns and canticles, being deeply moved by the sweet singing of your Church. Those voices flowed into my ears, truth filtered into my heart, and from my heart surged waves of devotion.” Indeed, who could fail to be moved by those many passages in the psalms which set forth so profoundly the infinite majesty of God, his omnipotence, his justice and goodness and clemency, too deep for words, and all the other infinite qualities of his that deserve our praise? Who could fail to be roused to the same emotions by the prayers of thanksgiving to God for blessings received by the petitions, so humble and confident, for blessings still awaited, by the cries of a soul in sorrow for sin committed? Who would not be fired with love as he looks on the likeness of Christ, the redeemer, here so lovingly foretold? His was “the voice” Augustine heard in every psalm, the voice of praise, of suffering, of joyful expectation, of present distress.”

And below is a sermon on this same great Saint. It describes the program for the pontificate of Saint Pius X, the arch-heresy of modernism, and then Pope Saint Pius X’s thorough condemnation of this most destructive but influential heresy. Both Lamentabilli and Pascendi are discussed, along with the Oath Against Modernism. It’s a pretty good sermon, though I might have a couple of small quibbles which I’ll just pass over in silence:

I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle a bit on Pope Francis surprise announcement on Monday, issued in a typically novel manner, making licit the confessions of the SSPX for the Jubilee Year of Mercy 2016. My first reaction was that this was a generous act. I then began to see comments that this might be some bit of modernist trickery, some attempt to divide orthodox Catholics against each other on the eve of the Synod. Others have claimed that while trickery may have been the intent (and the division might happen), if Francis does have great hostility towards the SSPX, he messed up big time, because his act seems to prove the SSPX were right all along, that their confessions were always valid and licit due to an extraordinary crisis providing supplied jurisdiction.

I guess you could say I remain in the muddled middle. I’m far from being a Francis apologist, but I’m having a bit of a hard time convincing myself this act was all part of some Machiavellian plot. I recognize Francis’ less than positive qualities I think about as well as anyone, but I still have a possibly naive hope that this act could have been motivated by a genuine desire to do something he perceived as good and generous. I do think the commentary I’ve seen that Francis may have inadvertantly given more credence to SSPX claims of supplied jurisdiction is probably some of the more valid I’ve seen thus far. I don’t think Francis, nor the advisers he surrounds himself with, are particularly able to see the distant implications of many of their actions. Or maybe there are and just don’t care, or are so diabolically brilliant they’re thinking 30 moves ahead of my addled little mind.

Nevertheless, at this point I don’t see enough evidence either way to either lambaste this action as a trick nor praise it as a great breakthrough.

For my money, some of the best analysis I’ve read thus far comes from 1 Peter 5, and this post by P.F. Hawkins. By best, I mean “from which I learned the most.” I think you can draw some implications from the below that goes some way towards supporting, or refuting, some of the speculation that is abounding at present:

CLAIM: “The SSPX bishops do not have jurisdiction and are not in full communion, so the priests of the SSPX have never been able to absolve sins in confession”

VERDICT: FALSE

Generally speaking, the principles outlined in the article are true. Bishops with jurisdiction have to grant canonical faculties to priests in order for absolutions they grant to be valid.

However, in the past, the Vatican has not always acted toward the SSPX as if this were the case. For example, whenever an SSPX priest illicitly hears a confession that touches on one of the sins reserved to the Holy See, the SSPX forwards the proper paperwork to the Holy See to obtain permission to absolve and guidance on what penance should be administered.

Every time the SSPX has done this in the past, the Vatican said that all was “good and licit”, and treated the administration of that sacrament as it would with any priest in good standing.

We thus know that, at least in these limited cases, the Vatican has acknowledged certain absolutions granted by SSPX priests are valid.

Also of note: the Orthodox churches are not in full communion with Rome, but have jurisdiction and therefore valid confessions. So not being in “full communion” has no bearing on whether or not a group’s confessions are valid. It is specifically jurisdiction that does. [Like the Mass, then, they are valid but not licit, although I know many Catholics outside SSPX including Ecclesia Dei communities who argue strongly that they are neither. I think we have enough confirmations from Vatican sources to know that the Mass is valid but not licit. Confessions I’m less certain about. Question – does what amounts to an extension of faculties for the year not also make Masses licit, too?]

CLAIM: “the group was canonically dissolved in the 1970s”

VERDICT: FALSE

It is true that the Vatican withdrew approval for the SSPX in the 1970s. But it is not true that the approval was withdrawn in a canonical manner.

In 1975, Rome sent an Apostolic Visitation to the sole SSPX seminary. All reports indicate that the visitors did not find anything amiss at the seminary, although documentation of the visit has never been released. The visit, however, prompted Archbishop LeFebvre to write a declaration to members of the SSPX. This declaration was used as the sole justification for closing down the seminary.

Given that the justification for shutting down the SSPX was insubstantial, Archbishop LeFebvre appealed his case to the Apostolic Signatura, as was his right in canon law. He received no response whatsoever. His appeal was not rejected; it was simply never heard, or even acknowledged. This can hardly be considered canonical….

CLAIM: Pope Francis’ decision is an “unprecedented act of ecumenism from the Holy Father”

VERDICT: FALSE

While this act of Pope Francis’ is unprecedented, it is not an act of ecumenism. Ecumenism describes those relationships developed between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christian religions. The members of the SSPX are Catholic, and have never been declared to be otherwise.

Cardinal Edward Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian unity, perhaps put it best in a 3 May 1994 letter:

“… Regarding your inquiry (March 25, 1994) I would point out at once that the Directory on Ecumenism is not concerned with the Society of St. Pius X. The situation of the members of this Society is an internal matter of the Catholic Church. The Society is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the Directory. Of course the Mass and Sacraments administered by the priests of the Society are valid. The Bishops are validly, but not lawfully, consecrated…. I hope this answers your letter satisfactorily.”

CLAIM: “Previously, when asked to sign a doctrinal preamble, the current head of the SSPX, Bp. Bernard Fellay, balked.”

VERDICT: TRUE

While this claim is factually true, this bare sentence omits some important context. Bishop Fellay balked only because the Vatican, at the last minute, added new conditions to the preamble after previously negotiated, mutually acceptable conditions had already been agreed upon. [Widely reported as being conditions foisted on Pope Benedict by elements of the Curia who flipped out at the idea of the SSPX being allowed “back in” without some significant concessions towards “accepting” Vatican II and not criticizing the new Mass]

I’ve seen one disconnect of logic out there that I think bears mentioning. I have seen it said that the Pope extending faculties for a year means there have always been faculties. The above notwithstanding, which I think is very interesting, this statement has been made in a manner that is not substantiated, it’s pretty much just a bald assertion. The fact is, popes in jubilee years in the past have extended all manner of benefits to local subsets of the Church, priests, and souls who accomplish certain acts. So I don’t know that this act is as significant as it is being made out to be.

As some have already expressed to me, one bad side effect of this extension of faculties is that it could foster even more internecine strife among traditional groups. Perhaps I’m contributing to that above unintentionally. That’s not my point. My point was actually to determine if that pious fear was correct, and it seems that it is.

We can discuss the matter with charity and consideration for the possibility that other’s viewpoints may have some value. Please no ad hominems or general attacks (e.g., ALL Ecclesia Dei priests are sell outs who offer the Novus Ordo and forbidden to criticize Vatican II, the SSPX are protestants and a cult, etc).

Comprehending the nature of the Revolution that has invaded, undermined, and eventually subdued the former Christendom is not an easy task. The Revolution is noxious, it is invidious, and it is subtle. It is more than the sum of its parts. It is diabolical. It’s first major eruption was the protestant revolt but it has metastasized many times since then, from the rationalism of the 17th century to the endarkenment of the 18th and all that has come since (including socialism, communism, modernism, etc).

The Revolution is examined in great detail by Plinio Correa de Oliveira in his magnum opus Revolution and Counter-Revolution. The book is a critical analysis of the nature of the Revolution – which above all is ONE – from the perspective of first principles, history, and moral doctrine. As such, it approaches its criticisms from a variety of angles, far too many to fairly post. But I think Oliveira reduces the Revolution to its essence in his chapter on the revolutionary denial of sin, and its co-opting of sinful behavior to serve as its greatest selling point.

Hopefully the below will make as much sense to you, without the prior 60 pages of background material, as it did to me:

Among the multiple aspects of the Revolution, it is important to emphasize its inducement of its offspring to underestimate or deny the notions of good and evil, Original Sin, and the Redemption.

…….The Revolution is a fruit of sin. However, if it were to acknowledge this, it would unmask itself and turn against its own cause.

This explains why the Revolution tends not only to keep silent about its sinful root but also to deny the very notion of sin. Its radical denial applies to Original and actual sin and is effected mainly by:

Philosophical or juridicial systems that deny the validity and existence of the moral law or give this law the vain and ridiculous foundations of secularism

The thousand processes of propaganda that create in the multitudes a state of soul that ignores morality without directly denying its existence. All the veneration owed to virtue is paid to idols such as gold, work, efficiency, success, security, health,etc.

The Revolution is destroying the very notion of sin, the very distinction between good and evil, in contemporary man. And, ipso facto, it is denying the Redemption by Our Lord Jesus Christ, for, if sin does not exist, the Redemption becomes incomprehensible and loses any logical relation with history and life.

In each of its stages, the Revolution has sought to de-emphasize or radically deny the existence of sin.

In its liberal and individualistic phase, the Revolution taught that man is endowed with an infallible reason, a strong will, and orderly passions.[This is the “enlightenment” phase, upon which this country was founded, although with a fair recognition of the darker aspects of mankind] Hence the concept of a human order in which the individual – supposedly a perfect being – was everything and the State nothing, or almost nothing, a necessary evil….provisionally necessary, perhaps. It was the period when it was thought that ignorance was the only cause of errors and crimes, that the way to close prisons was to open schools. The immaculate conception of the individual was the basic dogma of these illusions.

The liberal’s great weapon against the potential predominance of the State and the formation of cliques that might remove him from the direction of public affairs was political freedom and universal suffrage.

Already in the last century,[19th century]the inaccuracy of at least part of this concept had become patent, but the Revolution did not retreat.[It never retreats. Even in apparent defeat, the Revolution has in almost all cases been secretly spreading and gaining influence over aspects of men’s thinking, ready to erupt in a further and worse expression at some future date]Rather than acknowledge its error, it simply replaced it with another, namely, the immaculate conception of the masses and the State. According to this concept, the individual is prone to egoism and can err, but the masses are always right and never get carried away by their passions. Their impeccable means of action is the State, their infallible means of expression, universal suffrage – whence spring parliaments imbued with socialist thought – or the strong will of a charismatic dictator, who invariably guides the masses to the realization of their own will. [The Revolution never acknowledges its error. It can admit of no error, because its tenets are fundamentally religious. It is a religion of man against God, positing an earthly paradise against the eternal, perfect one. It is the mass cultural acceptance of satan’s lie that “we may be as gods.” It is the most pernicious belief system and competing religion the Church has ever faced, and there hasn’t been a totally effective response against it found, yet. That is why a lot of people, not out of despair, but out of a sense of realism, believe that this culture will probably have to go through some kind of collapse that finally and irretrievably reveals the lies of the Revolution before a true restoration can begin.]

In one way or another, whether placing all its confidence in the individual alone, the masses, or the State, it is in man that the Revolution trusts. Man, self-sufficient thanks to science and technology, can resolve all his problems, eliminate pain, poverty, ignorance, insecurity, in short, everything we refer to as the effect of Original or actual sin. [“The vision of the anointed,” or the technocratic revolutionary elite trying to establish their earthy paradise with them at the top rather than a Christian aristocracy]

The utopia towards which the Revolution is leading us is a world whose countries, united in a universal republic, are but geographic designations, a world with neither social nor economic inequalities, run by science and technology, by propaganda and psychology, in order to attain, without the supernatural, the definitive happiness of man.

In such a world, the Redemption of Our Lord Jesus Christ has no place, for man will have overcome evil with science and social progress, and will have made the earth a technologically delightful paradise. And he will hope to overcome death one day by the indefinite prolongation of life.

———–End Quote———-

For terrifying (in their accuracy) visions of this future I highly suggest reading We by Yevginy Zemyatin or Brave New World by Alduous Huxley. Both books contain immoral scenes but I think they are quite realistic potential future dystopias the Revolution would like to create and thus their value outweighs their problems. The religious aspects of worship of the Revolution cum super-State are very apparent in We.

All the ideas above can be fleshed out a great deal more. They also of course have limitations and objections, but I think overall the designation of Revolution as one, unalterably opposed to Christianity, and seeking to impose an endless human religion manifesting as a totalitarian state are inescapable. We should note the degree to which notions outlined above are very visible within the Church today. It is highly desired by the Revolution and their primary agents the Freemasons to make the Church the basis for this one-world religion and New World Order of no real national boundaries and one global superstate. The present pontificate seems to have fired new hopes that this dream may be much closer to realization than it appeared even a few years ago.

Our primary weapons against this looming dystopia are prayer, penance, practice of virtue, and personal awareness of the nature of the enemy we face. I hope to have more on possible means of reaction later.